The Billiken's Bluff

Tupac got murdered, Biggie got murdered, Jay Z makes too many records to not have a few potholes in his playlist.



Andre 3000 from Outkast keeps making music, but with a few exceptions, i.e., The Mighty O off of the IdleWild soundtrack, he stopped rapping 6 years ago, after releasing Stankonia.



I heard The Walk it Out Remix on Hot97 while driving home tonight.

Kinda catchy, but the type of thing that didn't exactly appear to be intricate, layered.





One verse ended with the query:

How can I say this and be polite, don't make me have to kill you, aight?

Material for a dissertation in cultural criticism course at NYU this was not. The last person I expected to hear on the next verse was Andre,



not just because of the tone already set in this song, but because he does not rap anymore, he croons.



The lyrical content couldn't be more disparate in the verses. Like Jay Z and Kanye in Diamonds are Forver Remix. Jay-Z ignoring the theme, or throwing spite at Kanye's attempt at social consciousness. There is not a common theme running through Walk it Out by DJ Unk featuring Jim Jones (the We_Fly_high_you_know_it_BALLIN!!!, dude) and Andre 3000.





It is also like Hugo Chavez invited onto US soil and critiquing his host country from their podium at UN and pulpit at Harlem Church.



Andre 3000 tries to talk sense to the real talkin', long white t-shirt wearin' (dip) set, who happen to reside on the same track. Oh my. Some excerpts from Andre critiquing the rap world and hip hop culture he left behind (in (and for) his spaceship) years ago.

Walk it out like an usher, if you say real talk I probably won't trust ya.

If you want to go to war with guns, my pleasure, even Jesus had twelve disciples on the lever, excuse me I mean trigger, whatever.

Your white tee, well to me, look like a night-gown, make your momma proud take that thing two sizes down. Then you'll look like the man you are, or could be. I could give a damn about your car, but then I would be.

My boy is wicked smart.



But it's not just a good verse, it's well-placed, in a song with this dude who epitomizes everything that is dead, soul-less, unoriginal and boring about hip hop today.


WAKE UP!@#!@#!@#$

Jones looks like he can't even stay awake listening to his popular, painfully slow-paced, plodding song called We Just Ballin.

Andre 3000 is calling him out (among others) and is just so much more adept and crisper. The song also appeals to The Billiken's Bluff because it mixes high_culture/low_culture, street smarts and books smarts, violent hip hop brag talk with nuanced turns of phrase. It's like a port city from the past. A cosmopolitan melting pot. A trading mecca where varied ideas and goods change hands. Like a bazaar in Constantinople or Babel.

Those moments, those what you might call liminal, Limit, frontier, edge zone experiences...are actually now becoming the norm. These multiplicities and distinctions and differences...that have given great difficulty to the old mind...are actually through entering into their very essence, tasting and feeling their uniqueness.

I am thoroughly excited and encouraged by Andre's unexpected appearance on this track. Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.